Godzilla-1.0, new Toho film, releasing November 2023!

[JasonPratt]

Japanese nationalism isn't completely foreign to Godzilla films, although Ishiro Honda the original writer/director of much of the first half of the Showa Era (1954 onward into the early 70s) wanted to get away from nationalism into international cooperation. Still even in his films, the military presence is almost entirely Japanese, with the exception of an American cruiser group blasting Godzilla (ineffectively) from offshore in the American edit of Mothra vs Godzilla (known in America as Godzilla vs the Thing). The nationalism ramped up notably during the second film series, known as the Heisei, specifically with its 3rd film (or 4th counting the original G54), Godzilla vs King Ghidora where the plot centered on jealous Americans from the future trying to derail a coming nationalist resurgence by Japan from economically and culturally dominating the world! Consequently, this film and the rest of the Heisei series afterward took about 15 years to get legitimate North American releases. (Amusingly, Tri-Star got the rights to do so as a side-effect of their 1998 American Godzilla film.)

That being said, in this case I'd argue this film is NOT in fact nationalist. Rather it's populist: people cannot trust governments to take care of us, so we have to dare to be awesome and find ways to deal with catastrophic problems ourselves. The Japanese government is restricted to donating four disarmed (!) destroyers for the final plan. (The experimental interceptor, the Shinden, is owned privately by a collector trying to get it running as a hobby.)

[ArizonaTank]

My Japanese is rusty, but still good enough to pick up the differences between the subtitles and the spoken Japanese lines. I think the most "nationalistic" thing in "Godzilla Minus One" was the scene where the main character, a 'failed' kamikaze pilot, returns to his parent's house. The neighborhood is bombed out, and his parents are dead. The neighbor, a middle-aged woman who also lost her family berates the main character. She blames the destruction on him and his fellow soldiers, because they 'didn't do their job.' No hint of remorse that the militarists had started the war in the first place.

Japan has had plenty of nationalistic movies over the years, and I am not certain they reflect any actual change in nationalism in society as a whole. I studied at a Japanese university. At the time, one of the major movies was titled "Dai Nippon Teikoku (The Great Japanese Empire)." It had some very nationalistic, and even anti-American scenes in it. Out of the many, many, many Japanese I knew at the time, with just a few exceptions, most of them really didn't care about the themes in the movie. Today, the movie is all but forgotten. Interestingly, you can find the full movie on youtube, but unfortunately without subtitles. Link below:

Over the years, there have been many other films... But these generally had more subtle nationalism. The best example is "Eternal Zero," a movie that the former conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (who was assassinated a year-and-a-half ago), praised. Unfortunately, the full movie isn't available anywhere online in English (youtube does have a version dubbed in French). Anyway, here is the trailer:

Yes, there has been a backlash against the foreign social media types filming themselves behaving badly in Japan. I think there is a long tradition of Japanese backlash against boorish foreigners; of course the media has changed over the years. I could bore everyone with pages and pages of examples. Anyway, it doesn't strike me as anything new, or different from what you would find in other countries, including the US.

Frankly, I would welcome a bit of positive Japanese flag-waiving. I worked for a time in Japan, and did my US Army Reserve time as a liaison with the Japan Self-Defense forces. It was sad in a way, because while Japan is a highly valued ally, Japanese society still had so little regard for their own armed forces. I worked with many fine folks who were not appreciated at all for their contribution to society. These days however, with China's push toward regional hegemony, Japan does seem to be coming out its shell.

[Gusington]

^Great post. Do you have Japanese ancestry?

[ArizonaTank]

^Great post. Do you have Japanese ancestry?

Thanks.

No, I just learned Japanese at university. I then went into the US Army, and knowing I could speak Japanese, the bureaucracy sent me places like Bayonne, New Jersey and El Paso, Texas. So when I got out of the Army, I found a nice IT job with an American company in Tokyo. After another job in Hong Kong, I eventually came back to the States.

[Gusington]

Interesting.

My wife, one of the brightest people I have ever met, attempted to learn Japanese during undergrad, before I knew her. It broke her - she could not do it and stopped trying after one semester.

Learning Japanese is one of two things she has failed at during her entire life.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I was able to speak it decently while I lived there but I've lost a lot.  I study via Duolingo for 20-30 minutes a day but it just isn't coming back.  I have been watching Japanese movies and anime to practice listening.  When I lived there, I could follow 75-80%.  Now it's 25% on a good day.

Very frustrating.

[Gusington]

Can you read and write Japanese too?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

My kanji isn't great.  I can read about 1500 characters but I have trouble with the different readings when they combine. 

[ArizonaTank]

Interesting.

My wife, one of the brightest people I have ever met, attempted to learn Japanese during undergrad, before I knew her. It broke her - she could not do it and stopped trying after one semester.

Learning Japanese is one of two things she has failed at during her entire life.

I have heard the same thing from others, even those who had many languages under their belt.

Japanese just clicked with me somehow, and the immersion really helped as well.

For me it was German and Russian that really kicked my rear. After three years of studying university level Russian, I went to a movie, and couldn't understand a thing.

In Japanese the Kanji characters are a problem, and it does take study to keep up with them. These days however there are some great online learning tools like Wanikani that I recommend.

Like Silent Disapproval Robot, I comfortably knew about 1500 characters when I worked in Japan. Today, maybe half that.

Another issue with Japanese is that English uses a Subject -> Verb -> Direct Object pattern. Japanese switches that us and uses Subject -> Direct Object -> Verb. That can throw English speakers off for a while, until they get used to it.

Anyway, probably starting to derail the thread too much...

[GDS_Starfury]

Learning Japanese is one of two things she has failed at during her entire life.

I remember when I knew shorthand in high school and being able to read, write and speak Hebrew.
now not at all.

[Gusington]

^Me too with the Hebrew.

Now I just cut phat rhymes in English.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

A little more derailing...

Arizona Tank,

The aspect of Japanese I found the hardest was the way that it's taught from classrooms to self-learning books, to online programs.  In my opinion, they all go about it in a way that makes learning functional Japanese harder and the learner than has to "unlearn" what was taught and reprogram themselves.

For native English speakers, the Japanese language is unusual in that, unlike English, there is not much emphasis placed on time-based tenses.  Verbs in Japanese tend to conjugate based on cause, effect, desired effect, outcome, and levels of politeness. 

All verbs ha d a base or "plain" form and you conjugate them by adding a suffix depending on politeness levels and usage context.  There are dozens of possible stems (even more once you add in slang and regional dialects). 

I think they should teach the plain form of each verb first but they don't.  Instead they teach the neutral polite form as the default.

Eg.

To read:  plain form  'yomu'
          polite form  'yomimasu'.

You spend all this time learning verbs that are already conjugated using this neutral polite form.  The thing is  NOBODY in Japan speaks using this form outside of a classroom. 

You then have to go back, relearn the plain form of each verb, how to conjugate them (fairly easy since 99% all conjugate in one of 2 ways.  Very few irregular verbs in Japanese) and then learn what all the various conjugated forms are and how and when they're used.

The levels of politeness are, for me, very difficult to wrap my head around.  Different verbs forms and pronouns are used based on who the listener, the speaker, and the object of conversation are and their relationships to one another. 


At any rate, if anyone here is studying a different language, I found ChatGPT to be a very useful tool.

Once you learn how to tell ChatGPT what it is you want it to teach you, it can be very effective.

[JasonPratt]

ChatGPT, teach me Japanese using Godzilla movies!

"Would you like me to include anime?"

Uh, sure, that's fine.

"Would you like me to be topless?"

What the hell??

"Would you kill someone for me? I could make you very happy."

{pulls the damn plug}

[ArizonaTank]

And the Oscar goes to.... "Godzilla Minus One" for SFX.

https://gizmodo.com/godzilla-minus-one-just-made-kaiju-history-with-its-osc-1851321387

[JasonPratt]

Should have been at least nominated for other things, but I sure don't reject the win.